Siding & Exterior

Buying surplus siding & exterior: what to know

Siding comes by the square and jobs finish with part squares left: vinyl in cartons, fiber cement on the pallet, plus the trim, soffit and house wrap that go with it. Color matching is the whole game: a repair that matches is invisible, and the only reliable match is material from the same run.

Check before you buy

• Compare color in daylight, not a garage

  vinyl fades and chalks with sun exposure. Hold a piece against a known-new piece outdoors before trusting a color name.

• Check vinyl for hail bruising

  small crescent cracks on the back side of a panel mean it took hail. It installs fine and then fails the first cold snap.

• Inspect fiber cement corners and faces

  it is heavy and brittle before it is hung. Chipped corners are trimmable; a face crack runs the whole board eventually.

• Count pieces against your wall measurements

  siding math is squares: 100 square feet per square. Short by half a square means a trip to match a dye lot, which is the thing you were avoiding.

Rather have it installed? The directory has local carpentry pros you can message directly, and the cost guide shows what jobs like yours run locally.

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